Thursday’s lingering look at windows : Brisbane revisited

It was the last day of Laurie and Kerry’s very short visit to Australia. The week had flown by and the next day they fly back to New Zealand.

So where to go?

For something quite different we decide to explore the “big smoke”. Brisbane is the capital city of Queensland and it is just over a one hour train ride away.

First stop is the cultural centre on the south bank. We split up, I always enjoy browsing around the art gallery and Laurie and Kerry explored the museum with its wealth of information.

Brisbane art gallery

Meditation?

It is school holiday time and the museum is packed with excited children, but the art gallery is more sedate and I wander around absorbed in all the various displays. I suddenly become aware that many people are taking photos of the art, most of them are using their mobile phones. Children and young adults are posing in front of classic art and sculptures. I look around, the security staff are walking around and they do not seem to worry about all the photography. I’m amazed. What about copy-right? Then I realise that I have not seen any “no photos” signs. Maybe the powers-that-be have decided that in this day and age it is just too hard to police as people can now take furtive photos with the very small phones and go undetected.

So go with the flow and I snap a couple of my favourite paintings… Well maybe more than a couple 🙂

Beautiful old master. I love the colour and detail in this painting

I love the 3 dimensional look of this painting

Amazingly detailed fabric wall hanging

Lovely detail from the large Japanese wall hanging

The jacaranda tree one of my favourite paintings

Later I walked behind a young woman carrying a tripod over her shoulder and I eave-dropped on her conversation with one of the security staff.

“Have you got a permit for the tripod?” the guard said. The answer was “no”.

Well it seems you are classed as a professional photographer if you have a tripod and may be selling copies of your photos so have to buy a permit to take photos with a tripod. Interesting?

Brisbane art gallery

Behind the old art gallery a more recent addition is GOMA (gallery of modern art) only opened in 2006 it is an interesting contrast to the old style paintings. At the moment they are holding the APT (Asian Pacific Triennial) event showcasing art and sculpture from around the Asian Pacific region. Again I was tempted to take photos…

Papua New Guinea art. Do you like this one LIsa?

Interesting string designs

Can you work out which way is up?

What a good way to use old palm fronds.

Snake skeleton sculpture

I hope I never meet a real snake this size

It was almost lunch time and we had agreed to meet over the river in Queens Street, Brisbane’s premier shopping mall, for a coffee before exploring the CBD.

I walked past this very strange elephant sculpture outside the art gallery. It was commissioned in 2012 amidst much controversy. It is a beautiful work of art but I cannot understand what the significance is of putting him this way up.

Have you got any suggestions?

Controversial elephant sculpture. Now what can be the meaning behind this strange pose?

Despite the “no climbing on the sculpture” sign, children were having great fun crawling all over his trunk.

Brisbane CBD across the Brisbane river

A pleasant walk along the walkway beside the river and we met out side the beautiful old Treasury Casino building and had a coffee and bite to eat before a wander along the Queen Street Mall.

Brisbane Treasury Casino

I am always looking for windows to share with the windows group organised by Dawn on the blog “The day after” This was a perfect opportunity. I was surrounded by beautiful heritage buildings as well as the glass hi-rises. So here is a gallery of windows of Brisbane.

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60 something female, ( now 70 I have been doing this blog 3 years) fit and active, loves travel, reading, walking. Born in Yorkshire, UK. Moved to New Zealand, love the country. Became a "Kiwi" lived there 37 years, son and daughter still live there. Moved to Australia because I now live with and love an Australian that I met in NZ and am now an Aussie citizen.